Silver Waters
by Twilight PhoenixFyre
Summary: Reighn's past is shrouded in mystery, and that's just how the Eternal Pessimist likes it. But sooner or later, he knows someone's going to ask. And maybe, just maybe writing it down will make it easier for later. (Ripples-verse, Reighn Memoir) K


_Oh my gods this thing did not want to be written. Reighn detests letting anyone poke around in his past, and I am no exception to that 'anyone'._

 _Still, got it written and posted for the Room's Memoir Madness event._

 _So here we go. A little glimpse in the past (and head) of the Ripples Trilogy's Eternal Pessimist._

* * *

 **Silver Waters**

I suppose starting at the beginning is always the best practice. So really, I _should_ start there... but how many of us really, truly remember the beginning?

The furthest back I can remember is certainly further than most, I'm sure. I can clearly remember learning to walk, my childish frustration with a body that wouldn't do what Mama's would.

But I won't actually start there. I'll start, instead, when I was four years old.

I'd been playing hide'n'seek with one of my older brothers and my papa. Odin was a rambunctious child, and that was one of the few games I could bear to play with him, mostly because I usually won, and that seemed to irritate him enough to make him avoid me.

So. I'd been hiding behind the couch in the living room, that gray one that was pressed right up against the wall. I'd been in the corner, smiling to myself at my near-guaranteed win. (Odin never thought to look behind the couch since he couldn't fit back there anymore.)

That was when Mama had pulled me back up out from behind the couch. "Gotcha!"

I'd squealed, but it was Mama, and I'd been very, very careful not to kick, even though she'd startled me. Mama had been pregnant at the time. She was big enough around then that I'd known for sure kicking her would be a bad idea.

"Found you!"

I groaned, because Odin had come running in just then. "No you didn't. Mama did."

"Mama's helping me!"

Mama laughed. "Oh, were you playing hide'n'seek again?" she asked, like she hadn't known. "I'm sorry, sweetheart, but I needed your little brother for something."

Odin had wilted, but then decided that he was going to go bother his twin brother. Identical twin, physically, at least.

I liked Kalin. He was as smart as I was, and also felt like Odin was the most annoying person in the house. But we didn't talk much, because Kalin was the eldest, and Papa had to teach him to be a good knight. Not that Kalin much wanted to be a knight, but I digress.

Mama stood up and took my hand, leading me through the large house. We weren't nobility. We certainly didn't live in one of the huge manor houses on Hod. But it was a big house, big enough for me, Mama, Papa, the twins, my little sister Valkyria, and the baby Mama was going to give birth to.

I'd asked Mama if she thought it was going to be a boy or a girl, and she asked me what _I_ thought. I'd had this feeling for a while by then, the feeling that it would be a boy, and said as much. Mama told me she was planning to name him Matthias, and I had to agree that it was a good name.

I was a bit confused when Mama took me to the library. She led me over to one of the shelves I avoided—encyclopedias, I'm sure the reason is obvious—and then looked down at me.

"Take careful note of this, Reighn."

I'd nodded, and then Mama let go of my hand and started pulling books out of their perfect lines.

I'd watched as she tugged the sixteenth volume of the plant set out, about two inches. Then the seventeenth of the fontech set, also two inches. The fourth of the weather and geology set, only one inch. The general set was next, the fourteenth volume here, and only an inch.

And then one of the journals, labeled 'Aureriun Orother' on the bottom shelf, which was pulled out about three inches.

The moment she finished moving the journal, the entire bookshelf had slid to the side, and I'd gasped.

What lay beyond, it pains me to say, was one of my greatest regrets. Of all the things we lost in the Hod War, the Aureriun library of forbidden scrolls, one of _my_ responsibilities, was probably the greatest loss of knowledge.

To be honest, even given that knowledge back, I'd have given it all up in favor of the other very important part of my life I lost the day we fled Hod.

* * *

I'd been reading one of the forbidden arte scrolls when Valkyria, finally properly mobile at three years old, came running into the room. "Reighn, Reighn, Papa said—"

An explosion and the consequent shaking from it interrupted her, both because they told me what was going on before she did, and because the shaking made her fall.

I'd done the only thing that could come to mind. I'd leapt to my feet, grabbed my bag that seemed to follow me around everywhere, and opened up the hidden library. "Go find Papa and the twins!" I yelled over my shoulder. Mama and Matthias would be together, as two-year-old Matthias was barely walking yet, and Mama was pregnant. Again.

 _Heavily_ pregnant.

I was in the library, grabbing as many scrolls as I could fit in my bag, and running back out of the main library as quickly as I could. Valkyria was already gone, thankfully good at following directions.

Mama and Papa had prepared us for this happening. They'd known that war with Kimlasca was imminent, and had told each of us what to do. The twins and Valkyria would go with Papa in the larger of the family's two rowboats. Mama, Matthias, and I would go in the other.

So when I ran down to the docks to find that there was only one rowboat, which Mama was putting the pre-made bag of supplies in, I knew that Papa had already left.

Matthias was clutching a stuffed cheagle that had once been mine, that I'd decided I'd outgrown sometime around my second birthday. I knew then that it would probably be passed to the little girl Mama was carrying.

Mama got into the boat, and I was there and pushing us off as hard as I could.

For a not-quite-six-year-old, I was strong. I knew this. I was stronger than most boys my age, and Mama said it came from moving around from so young an age and then carrying around all of my books and things. And as I started rowing us away from Hod, away from what Papa had said would be 'ground zero' for something, I had let myself get lost in thoughts.

Papa had wanted to send the twins with Mama. They were eight, and Odin at least was just as oddly strong as I was.

But Mama had insisted on me going with her. So then the argument had started over who else would go with me and her. Papa still wanted to send the twins with us, and we'd have taken the larger boat, but Mama also wanted Matthias, her baby boy who was nowhere near as independent as the rest of us were. The twins were eight, I was always very independent, so was Valkyria, even at three, but...

Mama had won. Which was why it had just been me, Mama, and Matthias in that rowboat. I finally gave up on trying to keep rowing after about an hour. My whole body was starting to ache, and Mama nodded to me, silently telling me it was okay, I was okay to have stopped.

No matter what Mama and Papa could have said, nothing really prepared me for the bright light on the horizon two days later, or the suddenly much harsher waves. Once the water had settled again, I'd stood up carefully, looking back toward Hod as best I could.

But that dark spot on the horizon that I'd once called home...

That dark spot was gone.

"Hod is gone," Mama had said. "We shouldn't be too far from Grand Chokmah. We'll wait there for your father."

I'd nodded, turned and sat again, and quietly played pat-a-cake with Matthias just to keep my baby brother preoccupied for a bit while we drifted.

It was another two days to finally get to shore, a day's travel south of Grand Chokmah.

Mama gave birth to baby Aerith not a full month later.

Papa, Odin, Kalin, Valkyria... they never showed up.

* * *

I was eight when Mama died. Aerith had come waddling in, still not quite walking properly, and started complaining about Matthias crying.

Matthias was always very... _aware_. Not only of the things around him, but of people. He knew when I was sad even if I was all the way across the city at school. He knew when I was angry even if I was smiling and teaching Aerith all the spelling games Mama had taught me.

He knew Mama was sick the minute I did.

And he knew Mama was dead, just like I'd felt her loss on my soul, sitting there by her bedside and wishing it didn't have to be so.

Matthias joined us rather shortly, and I soon found myself with two cried-to-sleep kids in my lap and a rather large problem.

We'd been living off money Mama had brought from Hod. And Mama had been about to go get a job when she got sick.

What were we supposed to do now? We were running out of money, and I was eight. Close to nine, but eight. It wasn't like I could get a job anywhere.

Or... could I?

A dangerous thought crossed my mind then, and I had put my siblings to bed, told the authorities about Mama, and then stood in front of my mirror for a while, looking over my reflection.

I'd lost any remaining baby fat. To be frank, I was underweight. Badly underweight.

But Aerith and Matthias needed the food more than I did.

And I was tall. I was the tallest in my class at school, even taller than some of the kids in the next year up.

I could pass for ten. And if I could pass myself off as a ten-year-old, I could join the Order of Lorelei. The Oracle Knights would provide a room for me, and I could probably get my brother and sister into that room, too.

I'd never even considered becoming a soldier before then. Never. But Mama had taught me to fight, and to cast fonic artes. I was probably the best under-ten fonist in Grand Chokmah, and given that the city had a habit of producing fonic geniuses, that said something.

So, with this in mind, I'd headed out the next morning to start figuring out how much it would cost for me and my siblings to get on the next ferry to Daath.

I never actually made it down to the docks. Not that day.

I found the most curious sight instead. A group of six people, wearing what I recognized as some form of Order of Lorelei uniform. One stood out, a man of about twenty or so, who wore robes as opposed to the more combat-ready uniforms of the other five.

And the other five's uniforms weren't all the same, either. Though the designs were similar, there were distinct differences, and my eight-year-old mind made the connection easily enough, because with the way they were hovering around the robed man protectively, and their obvious ranking within the Order...

They had to be Fon Master Guardians. Which meant the man in the robes was Fon Master Evenos.

I stopped and stared, and my staring was noticed by a dark-haired woman with a green-lined tabard.

"What are you looking at, kid?"

Her words drew the attention of the full group, and I glanced over them. The woman in green, another woman with blonde hair in pink, a third, brunette woman wearing blue, that man had blonde hair and an orange-lined tabard, and the red-haired boy who honestly looked a bit out of place had a black-lined tabard.

"You gonna speak, or you just gonna stare?" the blonde asked.

Evenos tilted his head, observing me much like I'd been observing them, and just as the brunette woman huffed and moved to start walking again, he stepped forward, out of the middle of the group, and knelt in front of me.

At the time, I hadn't really thought much about it. I was desperate, and needed to do _something_ to take care of my siblings. I'd figured that making as good an impression on the Fon Master as I could might just get me a foot in the door with the Order.

"You look like a bright young man. What's a boy like you doing standing around in the streets like this?"

I'd answered him honestly. "I was going to the docks to see how much the fare to Daath was."

The man had raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Why were you planning to go to Daath?"

"The Order accepts as young as ten. I have two little siblings, and..." I'd stopped, realizing then that I probably shouldn't have been spilling everything to the man.

He'd chuckled, mussed up my hair, and then stood. "Walk with us for a little while?"

And, just because I was curious, and I had the feeling that the Guards wouldn't hurt me so long as I didn't act like a threat, I went with them.

The blonde woman was Elise. The dark-haired woman who'd first noticed me was Arbira. The blonde man was Eric, Elise's twin brother. The brunette woman was Breha. The redhead was Ryndor.

It had been... an interesting walk. I'd gotten to know all six of them. Arbira was the eyes and ears of the group. Breha was the Head of the Guardians. Eric and Elise were good fighters, despite appearing unassuming on the outside.

Ryndor, though... Ryndor wasn't actually that much older than I was, I'd found out. Fifteen years old, going on sixteen. And the boy was intelligent.

There was something in his lime green eyes that just... drew me in.

In hindsight, it was the fact that Ryndor was as intimately familiar with death as I was, even so young... but at that time? I hadn't had a clue what it really was. So I'd trusted him wholeheartedly.

By the time I returned home, Evenos had managed to convince me to call him by his name.

And when I woke up the next morning, I found an envelope that had been slipped under the door. I remember what it contained well.

A birth certificate that claimed me to be a year older than I really was. A note, enough gald to last me, Aerith, and Matthias for four months... And a ticket for the ferry to Daath, a ticket that was good for six months.

I read that note so many times over the years, that even now, having long lost the little scrap of paper, I remembered it word for word.

 _Reighn-_

 _Evenos asked me to set this up for you. See you in a month, and..._

 _Maybe I'll drag the little brat I found outside St. Binah by Grand Chokmah sometime. Danté needs_ someone _his age to interact with that's_ not _a liger._

 _-Ryndor_

* * *

It's a tradition, really. When a new Fon Master takes office, all the old Fon Master Guards, with one exception that should be named by the now-former Fon Master in their will, are to be replaced.

Evenos had named me as the 'survivor' when he was assassinated. I was fourteen when it happened, or fifteen according to my paperwork.

He'd named me the Head of the Fon Master Guards months previously, for reasons I'd still been doubting when he'd died.

It took me three days to get the name of the assassin who'd killed him. And, somehow, I wasn't surprised.

Ryndor Daemione. The man was twenty-one then, and the best—well, at that particular point in time, _only_ —assassin on Auldrant. And... I had the feeling the whole thing had been arranged.

So I didn't look into it as much as I probably should have. Instead, I moved on, meeting the new Fon Master, a seven-year-old boy named Ion, and learning about him.

It was almost two years later when I found myself filling the last two ranks in the Fon Master Guards.

One would be Arietta, a girl Ion had found on a visit to the Cheagle Woods. She was wild, raised by ligers and not at all interested in human nonsense, but she was loyal to Ion. Very much so. And I'd wanted _someone_ to offset my other... recruit.

Ion had found her, too, though where, I didn't know. Silver and gold hair, blue eyes, and one hell of an attitude.

It took me two weeks to get it into her head that _I_ was the Head of the Fon Master Guardians, and therefore her boss. The only reason she didn't get kicked out was because Ion would have thrown a fit.

It took almost a year for me to really start to trust her. And that was during a rather messy incident in Chesedonia.

I'd known even then, there would always be people who wanted nothing to do with the Score. Most Hod survivors counted as this, actually. Because anyone old enough to remember _knew_. Hod had been destined to be destroyed, according to the Score.

Maybe I didn't side with Van, who'd somehow wrangled the Commandant position in the Order, but I certainly didn't side with Grand Maestro Mohs, either.

All that aside, I took my job as Ion's guard very seriously, and so when the fighting broke out as the supposed heretics fought to try to get to him, I'd ordered Star to take him and start running while the rest of us held off the attackers.

Star didn't obey me. It wasn't the first time, but this time, it had really, _really_ pissed me off. And terrified me, but I never would have admitted it. So I was going to let her know that I was pissed in the only way I knew how.

Except...

I don't remember what actually happened, because something hit me in the back of the head. Hit me _hard._ And it managed to give me a concussion.

I do know, when all of it was over, that Star was the one to step up and take over leading the Guards while I was out of commission.

I also remember when Ion walked up to me a week later, when the healers released me. I'd been worried for a moment that I was about to get kicked out of the Guards, but... Well.

"I want you to teach me to fight."

I'd simply stood there for a long moment, staring at him, and then thought about it. He was almost ten, now. That was the age the Order accepted new recruits at. And Evenos had known how to fight.

"Any weapon in particular you'd like to learn?"

"I want to use a scythe like yours. It's kinda neat, really. It looks just like a regular staff, but then the crystal and the blade..." He'd made a motion with his hands to mime the fonic blade forming, and I glanced back at my staff.

Getting ahold of _my_ crystal had been enough of a pain in the ass already, and I knew Aerith had begged me for one when she'd found out about my scythe. I still didn't know what hers had been put to, if it had even been used or just set up on a shelf to look pretty.

Still... "We'll start basic training tomorrow. But it'll take a couple weeks to get a focal crystal, and another couple weeks for a staff to be made that's capable of channeling the crystal properly," I'd replied.

Ion nodded, like that was all there was to it, and had walked off.

I'd been proud of him at the time, not only for stepping up and choosing to learn to defend himself, but also because he'd chosen a weapon I could truly teach him to wield, because it was _my_ choice in weapon.

In hindsight, I wish I'd never agreed to train him.

* * *

I was nineteen when I got the letter from Aerith.

Matthias was sick, with the same disease that had taken our mother from us.

I'd resigned from the Order. Set up for Star to take my place as Head of the Fon Master Guardians, and gone back to Grand Chokmah.

When I arrived at the new apartment my salary with the Order had bought my siblings, Aerith wasn't home. The lady next door, who'd been watching over my siblings since I'd left, told me she'd gone to get food, and that she'd probably not be back for another hour yet.

So I'd forged ahead, unlocking the door and pushing it open.

The front room had changed. There were pictures up on the shelves, and books, and I knew that the staff in that corner was Aerith's, and the gunblade up on the hooks there was Matthias'.

It was a weapon that would never be wielded again, something that I had regretted dearly then, and something I still regret now. Because even from there, I could hear Matthias coughing.

I'd waited a moment, and then let the thought cross my mind. Because if it was anything like the cough Mama had died with, he'd be wiping the blood off his chin about then.

I could see it all clearly in my head, and I didn't want to go look, didn't want to see it.

"Aerith? Is something wrong?" Matthias had called. "I heard the door open... You're back early."

I'd taken a deep breath and forced myself forward, the carpet helping to muffle my already-quiet footsteps.

"...Aerith?" Matthias tried again.

He was sixteen. So young, _too_ young.

I's stepped into the open doorway, and I can still see the way Matthias' eyes widened.

That bright green color in his irises... Not Mama's blue, not Papa's gold, but somewhere in between. Which was... a bit strange, because I'd ended up with silver eyes. Mama had told me once that they'd feared I was blind...

"You're hiding in your thoughts again," Matthias had said softly, looking far too amused. Because that was exactly what I had been doing.

I'd offered up a small smile. "Suppose I am."

Matthias leaned back against the mound of pillows that were propping him up. "You came back."

"Yeah."

"You never visited before... I'm sorry—"

"Don't."

Matthias froze, staring at me in shock, and it was really no wonder.

I had _never_ cut someone off like that before Evenos had found me.

Not wanting to linger in the doorway any longer, I'd walked over to my little brother's desk and stolen the chair. I'd sat it with the back to Matthias, and did another thing I'd have never done ten years previously.

I sat in the chair the wrong way, laid my arms on the top of the backrest, and rested my head on my arms.

"So... Since Aerith's letters tend to be a bit self-centered and _someone_ was never very fond of answering mine..." Matthias had ducked his head sheepishly. "What have you been up to for the last ten years?"

And maybe it was a bit selfish of me, to ask my brother to waste his energy in what had been his last days...

But there was a defeated look in his eyes, one that had only alleviated _slightly_ with my presence, and it told me then that he knew his time was up.

A few hours would never be enough time to make up for a decade's worth of neglect, and no excuses would ever be enough for me to re-label it. But I would be there for the end, that much I promised him with my presence, my refusal to leave his side for more than a few minutes at a shot.

My baby brother had grown up in my absence...

And just like that, he was gone, and all I had left was Aerith, and my friends back in Daath... until I got the letter from Arietta.

She'd been reassigned to the God-Generals to work under Van, and Star had disappeared.

Ion was dead, and Star? Who knew. My partner had run off instead of honoring my wishes for her to take my place. My boss was dead, a replica having been put in his place. My brother was dead, and all that was left of my once-large family was myself, and my baby sister.

That night, it rained in Grand Chokmah, and the moon peeked out through the clouds to light up the raindrops.

I'd closed the curtains and gone to bed, refusing to let Aerith see the tears, and silently hated that rain, the strange glowing rain that was no sign of hope, as I'd thought the first time I'd seen it, on a balcony in Daath, but of despair.

That was when the thought first crossed my mind. What did that make me? My name was derived from the Ancient Ispanian word for 'moonlight on the water.'

As I curled up under the covers of a bed I hadn't slept in for ten years, I hated myself while I was at it.

If the silver waters were a curse, then so, too, must I have been.


End file.
